Venezuela’s ruling party filed motions to dispute the election of eight lawmakers from the opposition coalition, which on Dec. 6 obtained a majority with enough power to rein in President Nicolás Maduro, sack Cabinet ministers and even call an assembly to rewrite Hugo Chávez’s 1999 constitution.

The government’s party needs to succeed in unseating just one of the eight elected lawmakers to take away the so-called supermajority from the opposition.

The motions were filed Tuesday before the Supreme Court, just days after the government appointed 13 new justices — including two of the five justices from the Sala Electoral, the panel charged with all electoral issues.

As I said on December 7,

The immediate challenge:
The new members to the National Assembly do not take office until January 5th. Diosdado Cabello and his goons can cause a lot of harm and mayhem in one month.

The takeaway: What takes place in Venezuela in the next month, and in the first six months of 2016 will be crucially important for our entire hemisphere.